The Great Commission of the Risen Lord

Transcription

1 April 27, 2014 Matthew 28:16-20 Romans 10:14-1 Pastor Larry Adams The Great Commission of the Risen Lord Hello, my name is Larry Adams, and I want to take a moment to personally thank you for tuning into this week's podcast where you downloaded or are streaming this week's Bible message. I hope it will be a great encouragement to you, and it's our prayer that God will use it to strengthen your faith. I just want be sure to tell you too that we in no way intend for this message to be a replacement for your weekly involvement in a good local church. We hope that you are involved in a church in your community to worship, grow, and serve and to sit under the authority of pastors and teachers who can speak into your lives. We also realize that around the world there are places where there is no local church, so we re hoping that these messages each week will be a great encouragement to you and anyone else you may be gathering with to pray with, encourage, and to share with in this message. Thank you again for downloading this message, and we hope it will be a great blessing in your life. If you have your Bibles today, I d like you to turn with me if you would to Matthew 28. We re gonna be looking today at this section what's been called The Great Commission, but it is actually the natural followup to the glorious events of the resurrection. Jesus conquered our sin. He conquered death. He conquered the grave, and he's alive, Amen? And we are celebrating that. That s why our celebration last week was so powerful. But then Jesus told the disciples to go to a mountain where he would meet them and give to them a special commission that is now incumbent upon every believer to be engaged in. This is the way Matthew recorded it in Matthew 28 verse 16: Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. And then when the apostle Paul went out as one of those disciples, he understood the need of going out and sending people with this life-saving message. When he wrote to the Roman church in Romans 10, here's some penetrating questions he asked about the importance of being sent out into the world. Romans 10, verse 14: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! Let s pray for a moment. Father, we are grateful to be gathered here today on this Global Outreach Sunday to be reminded again that we are part of a church that will one day be made up of all nations, peoples, languages, tribes, and tongues. You have given to us a commission. We are told to go Page 1 of 10

2 and make disciples of all nations. I'm praying today, God, that as we open your word that you will touch our hearts again to see the world through your eyes to hear this life-saving message again: Jesus lives, and died, and rose again. He is the only way to God offering hope, forgiveness, and eternal life to all who believe because some messages are just too good to keep to ourselves. We thank you, God, for what you will show us today. In Jesus name, Amen. I doubt the name Alexander Fleming is a household word to most of us, but I would be willing to bet that most of us or someone we know has had our lives deeply impacted by his discovery. This Scottish scientist in 1928, who was also a Nobel laureate, made a discovery then that impacted the world. He learned that certain molds containing Penicillium rubens that were grown in the right substrate could exude a substance that had antibiotic properties. In other words, this substance could actually kill bacteria. He called that substance Penicillin, and the field of antibiotic medicine that has saved the lives of millions was opened up. As I was reminded of that again this week, I thought to myself, What if Alexander Fleming decided he wasn t gonna share his discovery with anyone? What if he said, Man, this is cool. I'm gonna use it to fix all my diseases. I'm gonna use it to heal my family. I m gonna share it with a few friends and maybe even my little Scottish village. But I m just gonna keep it to myself. Well, not only would it have made him one of the most selfish people on the planet, but millions of people would've continued to die from diseases he now knew could be cured. Well, the good news is Alexander Fleming didn't keep the discovery to himself. He shared it with the world. I d be willing to bet that most of us in this room have been deeply impacted by his discovery. Some news is just too good to keep to yourself. You know, last week we celebrated Easter, and rightly so. It is the celebration of the greatest news that God has ever sent to planet Earth. Those ladies who went to the tomb that first Easter morning were in for a discovery that would change the world. The angel told them in Matthew 28 verse 5: Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you. On that first Easter morning, those ladies learned and discovered at the tomb Jesus is not dead. He's alive. Sin has been forgiven. Death has been conquered. The grave has been vanquished, and those who trust in Jesus Christ are not going to die. They're going to live forever. That's something worth celebrating. So the angel told those women, Go quickly and tell the disciples. Some news is too good to keep to yourself. So those ladies went. Those ladies told those disciples, they went to Galilee, and they met Jesus on that mountain. Jesus said to them in verse 18: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. It's called The Great Commission. When those disciples obeyed and went to that mountain, Jesus said, Yes, I'm alive, and, yes, I ve got a mission for you. I want you and the church that will spring from your witness to go to all the nations and make disciples proclaiming this message because some news is too good to keep yourself. He told them in verse 19: Page 2 of 10

3 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Therefore, go, he told them. Now, the go is not the command. The go is a present participle in the Greek. It literally translates, as you ve heard before, as you are going. What s significant about that is that the Lord obviously had an expectation that as his people were going about their everyday lives anywhere in the world, they were to share this message with everyone they met. You are to make disciples. That's the command. Disciples are not just followers, they re reproducing followers, and disciple-making is at the heart of every church s commission. That s why when you walk in our lobby it s on the wall. It's in everything we do. It's what drives us to glorify God by making disciples who will impact every area of the world for Christ. Disciple making is the command. We are to do this of all nations, all ethnic groups, all people groups, all tribes, languages, and tongues. It's not just geopolitical countries he s talking about. It isn t just Save America or Save Brazil or Save Mexico or Save Uganda. Within every country there are many nations, tribes, and languages, and tongues. People associated by language or religion or culture. All nations are to hear of this good news. So they did that, and I'd be willing to bet that most of us in this room, if you re a Christian, have benefited directly from not keeping that message and that discovery to themselves. We are called to do the same, to spread this word. We are called to fulfill The Great Commission of the risen Lord. How are we to do that? We are to do it by being goers, and we are to do it by being senders, Jesus said. Every Christian is called by God to be someone who goes, a goer. Here s how it was put in verse 18: 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations. We re all called be goers. You know, my first missions exposure to the responsibility and privilege be engaged in sharing the gospel actually happened in a movie. It was a Missions Sunday at our church in Bellevue, Washington, Crossroads Baptist Church. It was a Sunday night, and they were showing the movie Peace Child by Don Richardson based on the life and the book of Don and Carol Richardson. The movie chronicled the incredible missionary experiences of Don and Carol Richardson who in 1962 left America to live among the headhunting cannibals of Irian Jaya called the Sawi people. Now, I watched this couple in this movie -- a true life story -- I watch this couple risk life and limb in Stone Age conditions to share Christ with people who would just as soon have eaten them for dinner as listen to what they had to say. As I watched this movie, I still remember thinking to myself, Who in the world would do that? Who would do that? It didn t make any sense. In fact I sat there thinking, These people gotta be off a half a bubble. I mean nobody in their right mind does this. So I was asking the question, Why would anybody want to do that? Don Richardson answered the question himself. He said, God loves the Sawi people, and he wants them to know him. God has called Carol and me to tell them. I thought, That's it? You risk everything for that? God loves these people and you think he's called you to tell them? You see, God brought people to tell Don and Carol the good news. They didn't keep it to themselves. Don and Carol came to Christ, and they learned that this news was Page 3 of 10

4 too good to keep and that God wanted them to share it with the Sawi people. For the first time, I began to understand that God's commission given to the disciples on the mountain was for me. It s for all of us. We are called to be goers and to share God's good news of life in Christ with all people. That's why Jesus said, Therefore go. You know, most of us are called to share as we go right where we live, to share the good news as we go among family and friends. Do you know any family or friends who need to know the truth about Jesus and have him in their hearts? We are called most of the time as we go to share this good news amongst neighbors and work associates. Do we understand today it's the primary reason you live where you live, work where you work, shop where you shop, play where you play, go to school where you go to school? You know, when we look for a new house somewhere, we may be looking for the one that s got all the right features and the neighborhood that s just right and close to schools and work and everything else. But I can assure you of this, God's number one agenda is to guide you to plant you right in a neighborhood where your light is gonna shine for him where it s most needed. I ve had people say, Man, I sure hope I get Christian neighbors. I say, Why would you want that? You can go to church to be with other Christians. You need to be amongst people who don't know him. Do you know that you have a job that you have -- it isn't just to put bread on your table, although that's part of that -- but do you realize that God has you working where you work because he's placed you there to be a strategic light for him amongst those people who need to know who he is? That's why you're there. It was this awareness that I'm called to share as I go with everyone and every place that changed my whole approach to life and work. When I worked in industry or when I worked at a local city park department when I was going to school, I knew I was there be a witness. That's why God put me there, to testify to God's life-giving truth, the discovery of a message that could save people to give them life forever. Today, as a pastor nothing s changed. My daughter, Kimie asked me once, Dad, what would you do if you weren t a pastor at Golden Hills? I said, I don t know what God would give me to do to put bread on the table, but I can tell you this: My job might change, but my vocation is always the same. I d go back to doing what I did before I was pastor. I d be sharing with people wherever he put me. You know, as I go today as a pastor, my life in the community is to encounter people in everyday situations. I see my life as a goer who is there to tell people the good news that s too good to keep to myself. People, I don t share this stuff with people because I'm a pastor, I share with them because I'm a Christian. In fact, it was easier when I wasn t in a pastor. Now when people find out what I do, they expect me to talk like this. They don t listen. We're all goers for God right where we live, but some of us will be called by God to go to the nations where they live, to go to the unreached and unsaved peoples of the world. Therefore, go, Jesus said, and make disciples of all nations. As I mentioned, these are not geopolitical countries. These are people groups. America's one country, but it's made up of many nations, many people groups. God is bringing the nations of the world to our doorstep. Our church, Golden Hills, is made up of people of many nations, people coming from different parts, different tribes, different cultures coming to be a part of this church. Page 4 of 10

5 But God also calls us to be goers to the nations where the peoples are living, to leave our homes and go to the nations of the world to live and to work among them so that as we go they can hear this message that s too good to keep to ourselves. Many of these people groups are unreached. Can you imagine? Entire populations of people that have never heard the name Jesus, never heard it. Don t even know he ever existed, have no clue; people who have no indigenous church, few if any known believers, no Bible in their language, no missionary in their culture, no missionary in their midst. Depending on how you define an unreached people group, missiologists estimated that somewhere between 500 and 2,000 nations still exist that have not come to Christ, who haven t heard of him, who are still unreached. People are dying every day with no awareness that Christ has even come. This call to go to the nations has been on God's people to carry out for him from the very beginning. You remember Abraham living in the Ur of the Chaldeans near the Persian Gulf? God called Abraham to leave and go to a place he would show them to start a new nation. You remember that? Genesis 12 verse 1: The LORD had said to Abram, Leave your country, your people and your father s household and go to the land I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Abram was 75 years old when he was called to leave his homeland and go to the land that God would show him. God said, If you do this, if you ll obey this command and go as I'm telling you, this is what I m gonna do. I'm gonna make through you, Abraham, a new nation called the nation of Israel. Through that nation I m gonna bless you materially and I m gonna bless you spiritually so that that nation can go out and testify to my greatness to all the nations of the world. I'm gonna raise you up and make you a witness to the nations. That's what I m gonna do with Israel. Israel was blessed so that they could be a blessing to the Gentiles, the nations, the peoples. Seven hundred years before Jesus came in Bethlehem, Isaiah told the nation of Israel in Isaiah 42 verse 6. God said I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, 7 to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I've had people say to me, Why do we do this? Why don t we just leave those people alone? Aren t they happy in their own little cultures? Page 5 of 10

6 No, they re not. Blind eyes, people captive to sin needing to be released from the dungeon and their darkness does not sound like people happy to me. Israel was to be a light for the Gentiles, for the nations. And when Israel didn't do it, when they turned to their own idolatry and kept his message hidden within themselves and excluded the nations, what did God do? He took the nation of Israel and he sent them out. They were captive to Assyria and Persia and Babylon and Egypt. When God wants the message out, he ll get it out. He took those people entrusted with who he was, and he sent them out forcibly into captivity to these nations, and along with them the prophets who would declare the message to every culture to which they went. When Jesus came, he rode into Jerusalem that day on that Palm Sunday on a donkey hailed as King. When he got in the city, you remember what he did? He went and he cleansed the temple. He picked up a whip and chose to chase out the moneychangers and tipped over their tables. Why did he cleanse the temple? It wasn't just because they were selling in the temple or even ripping people off charging high prices for the sacrifices. They were excluding the nations. They were excluding the Gentiles, robbing God of the opportunity to impact the nations. That's why in Mark 11 verse 15 it says: On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers. It wasn't just they were ripping off the people coming in to buy sacrifices, they were ripping off God from impacting the nations. You see, the temple had an inner core called the Holy of Holies where God's presence dwelt. Outside that curtain was another place called the Holy Place where the priests did their work. Outside that was another court called the Court of the Gentiles or the Court of the Nations. God had always intended that when Israel came, through their priests and sacrifices to worship the one true God of the universe, that there would be a place for the nations to come and to gather to learn of this God and to encounter him. The Jews had not only cast the Gentiles out, they took it over, turned it into a marketplace, and would not allow the nations to come in. Jesus saw it. He took a whip and chased them out. My house is a house of prayer for all nations, all peoples. That's what's on the heart of God. The early church knew it. That's why the very first Christians were called that in Syria, at the church in Antioch, they were first called Christians there. Acts 13 verse 1: In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. The church early on who understands that if we re gonna be called Christians, which by the way, means little Christ, if we re gonna have the heart of God, we ve gotta be engaged in this global work. So they raised up Barnabas and Saul and sent them off. Paul became apostle to the Gentiles, the nations, as Peter was apostle to the Jews. God used Paul and Barnabas and others to go across Palestine and Syria and Asia and eventually Europe, and then those disciples centuries later brought that message to the new world. You and I are Christians today because of it. God is still calling people to go to the nations for that same purpose. You might say, Wait a minute. I m no Abraham. I m no Paul. I m no Barnabas. I m a homemaker. I m an engineer. I m a machinist. I m a laborer. I m a businessman. I m a waitress. I m married. I ve got kids. I ve got Page 6 of 10

7 responsibilities. I'm retired. I'm in middle school. Well, if you re retired and you're in middle school we need to talk to you, but you get the point. You can be any or all of those things and God may be calling you to go to the nations. You remember Alexia de Sylvio? Many of you pray for her. Many of you give to her and support her. It was some time ago that Alexia and her daughter Natalya were sitting in the service like this and they heard a message like this about going to the nations. She thought, Why not me, a single mom with her little girl? She said yes to God, got the training she needed, and God ended up sending her to Senegal, West Africa to work among some of the poorest of the poor. She met a man, a Senegalese man there, whom she ended up marrying because he also had a heart to share God's truth with the people of his country. Together, they ve been serving in a community that s one of the poorest, rife with prostitution, kids growing up in a horrible situations. Global Insight Magazine is one of the places you learn about these stories. Alexia has let us know that she and her husband, Amet, have been invited to share the Bible with school-age children. Could you imagine a community in America that would invite the church to come and teach the Bible to their school-age children? But they said yes to them. We just got word that through that effort now, last we heard there were 67 children from this very, very poor and crime-ridden neighborhood who are coming every week to learn about Jesus. And listen to this, many of those kids are from Muslim homes where you could not get in to tell them about Jesus any which way. What the kids are doing is bringing the Bibles home to share with their parents and their siblings. Here, in one of the darkest communities that would often not be open to the gospel, you've got these kids sharing the word with these families because the great God spoke to a single mom and her daughter and said, I want you to go and do this, and she said yes. As Pastor Brian sometimes says, Who s on your frontline? Who are you going to be seeing this afternoon or tomorrow that God's calling you to go to? Or could it be that God s touching your heart to go to another land and live among them as you go? I met a young man in the last service, 18 or 19 years old, come up and said, I think God's calling me to Japan. I want to talk to Pastor Brian about being a missionary. We don't know when God s gonna speak to people or what he s gonna ask him to do, but I can tell you this: we re all goers because that commission Jesus gave to the disciples has been given to us because some news is just too good to keep yourself. Not only are we called to be goers, but every Christian s called by God to be a sender. That's why Paul said in that series of penetrating questions in Romans 10 verse 14: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! When God calls people to go anywhere, he ll raise up people to help send them. I've never been a missionary really, not like some are. I grew up in New England, went on business to Seattle where I got saved. Karla and I got married, moved to Portland, Oregon, and it was there in Portland, Oregon that God called us to be kinda cross-cultural missionaries in the land of fruits and nuts, so here we are. I've been here 30 years, I love California, wouldn t want to be anywhere else. God's been wonderful. He called us here to serve. This is home, but it is the land of fruits and nuts I gotta tell you. It has been a cross-cultural experience. If you're from outside the area, it takes a while Page 7 of 10

8 to get used to. So I suppose in that sense, but I ve never been a missionary in the sense of going to a totally different land. But when I was being called to the ministry up in Seattle when I was a very young Christian, even before I met Karla, I knew I needed to obey but I didn t know how. I remember saying, God, I got a house. I got a car payment. I got a job. I can t just get up and go to school somewhere. Every time I prayed about it, all I could hear from God was, Yes, you can. Yes, you can. So what God had me do was just, he said, Offload everything you got that you don t need. You don t need that nice car with a car payment. Buy yourself something cheap or pay for the thing, I ll get you around. You don t need all that stuff that s in your garage. You don t need all the stuff you got. Start liquidating that stuff. You do what you can to get ready. Travel light and leave the rest to me. I ll raise up people to help you. I ll raise up people to help you. I said, Okay. So I started doing it. I started getting rid of stuff. I still remember after I started this process, the following Sunday I came to church. I hadn t told a lot of people what I was doing, my pastor and a few friends and some others maybe. I still remember that Sunday wondering, Now, what am I gonna do? I ve quit my job. I m doing it, bla, bla, bla, and all of that stuff. Two families came up. They both handed me an envelope. I don t know if they knew each other. I opened the first one. There s a check for 50 bucks in there and a note, We ve been watching your life. God has asked us to send you this every month until you complete your training. What? I opened up the second note. There s a check for 50 bucks in there and it says, We ve been watching you, and we believe that God's asking us to send this to you every month until you complete your training. To make a long story short, every month for three years those notes and checks kept coming. Along the way, God allowed Karla and I to graduate. We had no debt. All our school was paid for. God gave us jobs along the way that we could do to help pay for things, and he raised up other people to help. You know what I learned from that experience? When God asks you to do something for him, when he asks you to go someplace for him, it doesn't matter what's in your hand, it matters what s in his hand. Sometimes God will put it in your hand so that you can be his hand to somebody he s called to go or whatever it is he s asked them to do. That s why Paul told the Romans: How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! How are we all to be involved in sending? First and foremost by praying. The kingdom of God is not gonna advance by human effort, God's gonna do this. Whether you re praying in a small group about someone who s gonna be sharing Christ with a guy at work the next day, whether you re praying for some local mission agency around here that s reaching youth or others, or whether you are praying and vitally involved in interceding on Monday nights with our Go Team for missionaries that are serving around the world. The fact of the matter is when you are praying, you are involved in the work of God in helping to send those people. I can assure you of this, no one should talk to their neighbor and nobody should go across the world unless they know somebody is interceding for them. God has to do the work. When you pray, you are sending the goers. Page 8 of 10

9 We also do it when we give. People who go, especially overseas, or those who go full-time into what they're gonna be doing, they give up a lot of their worldly possessions to get as light as they can go to be ready wherever God sends. They need support to get there, and they need support while they re there. They need prayers and they need resources. Paul told the Corinthian church that God would supply all they needed and then some so that they can be generous in supporting God's work around the world. You remember? 2 Corinthians 9 verse 10: Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. God said, I will make you rich so that you can be generous on every occasion. That making you rich doesn't mean that you re gonna be flowing with huge bank accounts. Many times we feel like we re just barely getting by, but there are times when God puts a little extra in your hands. What God wants us to realize is everything he s put in our hands is for his use. When a little extra shows up, our first question ought to be, God, what you want me to do with this? Not, How can I use it on me? I will make you rich in every way so that you could be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. Last week I was at a memorial service for Rilda Scarfo. You may not know Rilda, but I ll bet you ve seen her. She s been a Greeter out here for years. She passed away recently. She was 84 years old, wonderful lady. I don t think she ll mind me telling you her age. She s in heaven. I don t have to face her until I get there, so anyway I think we re okay. Wonderful lady. At her memorial service, Pastor Ken Cross did the service, and I learned something about Rilda. I ve known Rilda a long time, but I didn t know this, and I m not surprised. I m not surprised she does it. I m just surprised I had to learn it at her memorial. The family told Pastor Ken apparently that Rilda, living on a widow s income, gave 40% of all she got to the Lord s work because she wanted to reach people with a message that s too good to keep to yourself. Forty percent from a widow. God said, I will make you rich on every occasion so you can be generous on every occasion. It s not about, How much am I gonna get? It s, What has he already given me? That s the question. We are to be goers and we are to be senders. When we do that, we re fulfilling the Great Commission of the risen Lord. In Global Insight Magazine and other places you hear these wonderful stories. Pastor Brian gave me some copies of s that come in from the field. This one was from March 16 th, this last month. One of our ministry partners is involved in helping to drill wells in North Africa, in some of the driest regions of the world they drill wells. There s guys who know how to drill wells going over saying, God, I ll serve you if drilling wells will make a difference. They drill wells and earn the right for people to share Christ. Amazing. Anyway, in this it said: Last night, our men returned from three days of drilling in the bush. As we ate supper, they shared their day s experiences. Eric, who is a doctor from the US who also gave up his practice here for a season to go over there to serve the Lord, had been out with the team. He was sitting there at dinner with his New Testament out, and he s reading the Page 9 of 10

10 Bible. The dump truck driver, who apparently was a local guy, came over, saw him reading it, picked it up, and they said he hasn t put it down since he picked it up. This ministry partner, whose names I sometimes don't share because of the sensitivity where they re working, said that this truck driver even ate breakfast with it so he could keep on reading. That night when this ministry partner/missionary went to bed he said, The man's head was right next to me. He was going all night long with a flashlight. He just couldn't put it down. He kept reading and reading and reading and reading the Bible. They ve all had some good conversations about the various chapters and topics, and then the icing on the cake was in the last village, another man was interested in reading the Bible. The dump truck driver, who had gotten the Bible from the doctor, said to the guy at the village (in his own language), You read this very carefully and you understand it well, then go and tell everyone in your village what it says. When I read that I thought, How in the world does his truck driver who just got his hands on a Bible, reading it profusely for several days, come across a guy in a village that he knows is hungry, gives him a Bible and has the insight to say, Read this well. Know all that it says, and then make sure you go and tell everybody in your village what it says. Where did he get that concept? He got it from Jesus who gave it to his disciples on the mountain that day. Those disciples passed it on to the early church. The early church passed it on to everybody they met. That good news of that discovery spread across Europe into the New World to a doctor and a well driller who was then willing to go to North Africa to reach people that they had been called and sent to, who met a truck driver who had never read the Bible before who saw it and it s lifechanging message and thought, This is too good to keep to myself. I'm gonna share with a village boy and tell him to share it with everybody in his village. People, that's the way the gospel spreads to the nations, and God is doing it through you and me who are called all of us to be goers. Who is God gonna put on your front line tomorrow or today? What place may God be calling you to say, Yes, I'll go. We are all goers. We are all senders. And when we re engaged with God and the fulfillment of this Great Commission, we see people's lives changed, the nations are reached, God is glorified because this is a message too good keep to yourself. Father, thank you for this reminder. We go about our days every day and we forget sometimes we are placed where we are for reason. We all have a front line. We all have people that are right there to hear. You ve called us to go. You ve called us to send, not just here but to the nations of the world. Some day, God, will stand in heaven with you and see people from every nation, tribe, language, and tongue gathered at your throne, and we ll know that somehow we have the joy for eternity of having a small part in fulfilling the commission you gave the disciples that day on the mountain. They were faithful with it. Thank you for all the people in our church who have been faithful with it too and more you re raising up. As we keep saying yes, you re gonna use us to touch the world with a message too good to keep to ourselves. Thank you, God, for that privilege. As we sing this song now, God, may this be our tribute and our declaration of praise and commitment to you. We thank you. In Jesus name, Amen. Page 10 of 10